Consider me a "bitter small-town American." True, I live in blessed Santa Barbara, California, not in Pennsylvania or Ohio or any of the other "rust-belt" states that have lost so many well-paying jobs in the last twenty years, without recourse or redress. But I, like most Americans, have seen my civil liberties vanish, my health-care costs increase, my gasoline and grocery prices skyrocket, my Earth deteriorate, my national debt explode, my nation wage an immoral war and incur the disdain of billions of fellow humans.

To be sure, I don't "cling" to guns or religion as a result, and I don't take my bitterness out on immigrants. But I surely do blame the Bush/Cheney/Clinton line of leaders, as well as the rest of the media and political cabal, that doesn't respond to the needs of ordinary Americans. I want--I yearn for--America to change, fundamentally. I want Americans to run America again.

I therefore support Barack Obama for president, because of the remaining candidates, only he, to his credit, "gets it"; and only he, however inartfully, addresses it.

Monday, April 14, 2008

but am I the only sentient progressive Obama supporter who's thought of starting a movement (triggered and fueled by a website, of course) entitled, "Small-town bitter Americans for Obama"? I'm of course disqualified from doing so because SB is hardly an embittered locale, nor does my comfortably retired status make me (necessarily, financially) embittered, but C'mon guys, get with it! Not only will such a movement defuse by ridicule the Clinton/McCain rhetoric, it might actually catch on as a catch-phrase for reality. I mean, after all, as he did with the race thing, Obama in a few words (perhaps not all well-chosen) captured an American reality, and we ought to be embracing and fostering it, not running from it.

Novel Published!

A description of Erik's novel, Gaviota, is set forth on Amazon's website for the book. Use Gaviota, a novel, or Erik O'Dowd in Amazon's books search engine to locate the novel. Also, information about the novel can be found at Erik's website: www.erikodowd.com.